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What is the difference between Webserver and application server?

  Asked By: Francisca    Date: Mar 15    Category: Java    Views: 892
  

I attended an interview today for Java

Im My interview This question was asked ?

What is the difference between Webserver and
application server?

I said Webserver means it will support jsp & serevlets
then appserever means it wil support EJB also

Is that correct ?

I need the difference between this two i detail

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6 Answers Found

 
Answer #1    Answered By: Timothy Patterson     Answered On: Mar 15

appserver is one of two types:
thin and thick. if the client is thin, then the server  can do all the processing
in some cases, and results are sent to the client. for instance, telnet, all
work is done at the server end.

however, thin client can be a client without a hard drive, and the 'appserver'
serves the binarys.

web server, potentially has thin clients. for jsp  though, some work is done on
the client, such as reproduction of the plain text that is sent to the client in
the form of a document image (with exception to binarys (gif/jpg/swf)).

it does not matter if your answer is right or wrong, they asked  that question  to
test your understanding of the two components. if you cant tell the difference
between two common terms like app/webserver then you probably cant do the job.
appserver is not comonly used like webserver  these days as many clients are
meaty 32bit processors, thus there is little point trying to save money on
processor requirements and buying a central mainframe because of cheapness of
processors.

in theory the app server has been replaced by the webserver as many apps are run
on webservers now.

although i have not done much jsp, i believe that some work is done on the
client side.

web server, potentially has only thin clients, before you ask i would not class
javascript as part of the work involved in producing a webpage as javascript is
optional, unlike the work which must always be done by php/asp/jsp.

 
Answer #2    Answered By: Jezza Brown     Answered On: Mar 15

Oops. I think you blew that question. A web server
serves up content without processing them first. an
application server  "generates" dynamic content for the
web server to serve. I could be wrong.

 
Answer #3    Answered By: Norman Ray     Answered On: Mar 15

See the below url.
You will get the exact picture.

www.javaworld.com/.../...-0823-appvswebserver.html

 
Answer #4    Answered By: Leon Evans     Answered On: Mar 15

A web server  handles only the HTTP protocol. An application  server
typically handles a much wider variety of traffic and may contain a web
server as one of its services.

 
Answer #5    Answered By: Garai Chalthoum     Answered On: Mar 15

I got a rough overview of J2EE in my software architecture class and it
is described as a tiered structure. The web tier houses the web
server, Java servlets and JSPs and it sits between the client's web
browser and the application  server. Therefore, the web tier provides
HTTP capability to the system and houses any dynamic web content in the
form of JSPs. The application server  houses the EJBs and what not and
uses the web server found in the web tier to communicate with client
web browsers. The web tier can be completely bypassed however by
writing a stand-alone client application as oppose to an applet. The
client app then communicates with the application server via maybe raw
TCP or UDP without a dependency on HTTP thereby bypassing the web tier.
Does that answer your question?

 
Answer #6    Answered By: Caitlin Brown     Answered On: Mar 15